Sardonic Recurrence and Barking Dogs in Julio Cortázar’s Library of Tangos

The noteworthy relationship between music and text in the works of Julio Cortázar has typically been studied in terms of his predilection for jazz. This essay takes up a diverse assortment of references to tango in his oeuvre, paying special attention to the tangopoemas in the 1984 volume Salvo el crepúsculo. Using as its starting point his description of tango’s effect in the Argentine listener as “sardonic recurrence,” the essay considers Cortázar’s varied acknowledgments of tango’s role in his creative life subsequent to his relocation to Paris. It surveys these instances as proof of the preferential place classic tango lyrics occupy in Cortázar’s memory and reference library.